Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Pepper and Onion Burritos

It's football season and Carter plays on Monday nights, kind of cramping our Monday night dinner style, so I had to think of something quick that I could throw together between getting home from work and rushing off to the game.
For some crazy reason, I had burritos on the brain yesterday, even though I am not a huge fan of flour tortillas. But what to fill them with?

And then I remembered, the peppers are coming in hot and heavy from the garden: both the Corno di Toro Rosso and the Jimmy Nardello peppers are in full swing. In the photo below, the cornos are the larger, straighter and darker peppers. The Jimmy Nardellos are redder, smaller, and more curved. They are both awesome peppers and I like to grow both each year, though the smaller Jimmy Nardellos have the best pepper flavor of any I have ever tasted. Here's what Baker Creek Seeds, my supplier, says about Jimmy Nardello:

This fine Italian pepper was grown each year by Giuseppe and Angella Nardiello, at their garden in the village of Ruoti, in Southern Italy. In 1887 they set sail with their one-year-old daughter Anna for a new life in the USA. When they reached these shores, they settled and gardened in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and grew this same pepper that was named for their fourth son Jimmy. This long, thin-skinned frying pepper dries easily and has such a rich flavor that this variety has been placed in "The Ark of Taste" by the Slow Food organization. Ripens a deep red, is very prolific, and does well in most areas.

Bounty from our Garden

So what to do with a bounty of frying peppers? Fry them, of course, with onions. And what completes this trio, especially in a quasi-Italian household? Sausages, of course. But since I was doing burritos, I went with a Salvadoran chorizo rather than sweet Italian sausages. The peppers did not suffer from this!

Peppers, Onions, Chorizo, and Slivered Garlic Frying

I wanted a touch of cheese in my burritos, but fresh cheeses really don't agree with me. I know that Ann would have loved some gooey mozzarella in her burrito, but I can't do it. So I got a bag of grated cotija, the Mexican equivalent of Parmigiano Reggiano, and sprinkled a bit over. Cotija adds a texture that Parmigiano does not.

And as for hike number 2 of our 52-hike challenge this year: Sunday afternoon saw a temperature of 15 degrees with windchill well below zero...

About Us

Ann and Ed wake up fiending for great coffee and thinking "What's for dinner tonight?" On our rare days off (Ed is the chef/owner of One Block West restaurant in Winchester, VA) we can be found on a trail in the Shenandoah Valley or nearby in Virginia, West Virginia, or Maryland. And after our hikes, we're looking for good food, wine, and craft beer.

Our kids are grown now and we are more free than we have been in 25 years to go, to be, to explore, and to flip a coin about which fork in the road we take next. Recent deaths of our parents remind us that life is short and that we should enjoy each day. This blog is a journal of our twists and turns as we consider each fork.